


Marrow

by eloquated



Series: Anatomy [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awful Officious Lawyer, Five Stages of Grief, M/M, Mycroft Holmes Has Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 05:50:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16487036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated
Summary: Marrow (n.):a soft fatty substance in the cavities of bones, in which blood cells are produced.The rat-faced lawyer looked at Sherlock the way Sherlock looked at the rest of the world.  Clearly, nobody had told the rodent that that look was trademarked.  He could keep his greedy hands off.(follows the events ofFasciaandStricture.)





	Marrow

**Author's Note:**

> Before anything else, I just wanted to say a massive THANK YOU to all the wonderful people who are sailing this ship with me. I was terrified about stepping into fanfic after such a long time away, and everyone has been absolutely incredible.
> 
> This installment is dedicated to the absolutely fabulous LadyGlinda, who wanted Sherlock to have the chance to talk to his brother again!

Sherlock despised his brother’s lawyer.  

The representative from the illustrious firm of Morris and Kleinman reminded him of a rat, with a small, pinched face and sharp, pointed features.  He had dark eyes that constantly moved-moved-moved around the room, restless and waiting for some cat to reach out and start batting at him. Sherlock had only met him a few times, and only in passing, but his supercilious smile, nose raised, had left a bad impression.

Ewan Morris looked at Sherlock the way Sherlock looked at the rest of the world.  Clearly, nobody had told the rodent that that look was trademarked. He could keep his greedy hands off.

And while he was at it, he could put down the heavy, cream envelopes he was clutching possessively to his chest.  As if a little manila could stand between his dark Westwood suit, and the general health hazard that was Sherlock’s flat.  Pretentious arse. As if a few unwashed cups would kill him.

Even if the dredges of cold tea were floating with tiny islands of greenish-white mold.  A little  _ Alternaria Alternata  _ wasn’t going to hurt him.  

The balance of the mess wasn’t even his fault. The blame for that could be laid exclusively at the feet of his bomb happy little sister, blowing out the literal walls in her quest for… revenge? Understanding?  He would know when he’d seen the security videos, but without Mycroft’s connections, they were proving bloody difficult to obtain.

Mycroft who shouldn’t have fucking left him to --

Sherlock’s stomach turned over harshly, forcing a wave of sour, burning bile up the back of his throat. It had been going that a lot, lately.  Nausea like a litmus test, the more sick he felt, the closer he was getting to what John had referred to as ‘healthy feelings’. The sort he was supposed to work through, and accept, before he could move on.

A lot of psychobabble, stages of grief, and Sherlock felt locked on the anger. Hooked on it like a fish, right through his vital parts.  It didn’t seem inclined to kill him, but he couldn’t free himself, either. The great fucking Consulting Detective was wriggling on a line, and he couldn’t even begin to get himself free.  

“Mr. Holmes, I know this is a difficult time for you, but there are legalities that must be seen to.  And as the executor of your brother’s Will, I have a responsibility to his--”

Oh right, the lawyer.

Sherlock had almost been allowed to forget about him for a moment.  

With a Herculean effort he pushed himself up from the uncomfortable, makeshift couch he’d cobbled haphazardly together from the rubble.  It annoyed the repair crew that he’d dismissed earlier-- morons, the whole lot of them, poking through the debris with no idea what they were doing.  Throwing things in bags and out to the skip on the sidewalk below, they didn’t have more than a brain cell to rub between the lot of them.

“If I look, will you kindly  _ fuck off _ ?”  Sherlock finally snapped, his long strides carrying him over to the lawyer.  He wasn’t a tall man, and Sherlock could count the pathetically side-combed individual hairs on the top of his sweaty, shiny scalp.  He didn’t even wait for him to reply, and simply snatched the collection of documents and paperwork physically from the rat’s hands.

“There, you’ve fulfilled your miserable little purpose, I’ll call you when I’m finished.”  

“Mr. Holmes, please consider.  There’s a great deal of-- yes, of course… I’ve included my card, and don’t hesitate to call if you need anything clarified.  We’ll… perhaps reconvene in my office in a few days, so you can sign the paperwork… Good evening, Mr. Holmes.” Apparently even Mr. Morris had some sense of self preservation, Sherlock thought darkly as the man turned and all but fled the apartment, leaving him holding the heavy stack of envelopes that was his brother’s lifetime achievements.

A whole life, boiled down into some pages.  Like the case file write ups he used to hang on the wall when he was younger-- pathetic, all of it.

With no table, coffee table, counter space or large, clean patch of floor to work on, Sherlock retreated for the hateful confines of his bedroom.  The mattress was bare, like a gaping socket in the middle of the room, surrounded by tangled blankets and the stray bits of whatever that had been sitting on them when Sherlock had torn off the lot.  

Now, he sat down cross legged, the long sweep of his robe behind him, and tried to suppress the urge to be violently ill.  For a brief instant, Sherlock half wished he had let the odious little rat read it to him. In the next, he considered calling Molly, or John; one of them would surely be willing to sit with him while he picked through this.

No.

After retrieving a glass of water and a cigarette (and thinking twice before grabbing the rest of the packet) Sherlock reluctantly sank down on the worn mattress and reached for the first envelope. They were all stamped with the hideous Morris and Kleinman insignia, a pretentious legal institution of their own.  

_ I, Mycroft Alexander Ulysses Holmes, residing at 12 Cadogan Square, Knightsbridge, London, declare this to be my Will, and I revoke any and all wills and codicils I have previously made. _

Sherlock gripped the filter of his cigarette tighter between his fingers, crushing the bit of foam to stop his hands from shaking.  Two houses in Sussex; one, a family inheritance from their Uncle Rudyard, and the other in haunted ruins, thanks to their sister. Not to mention the ludicrously expensive house in Knightsbridge that Mycroft had purchased when he was twenty-six. 

Over achieving bastard. 

“The Stately Homes of England, how beautiful they stand, to prove the upper classes, have still the upper hand; though the fact that they have to be rebuilt, and frequently mortgaged to the hilt..”  Sherlock deadpanned the lyrics flatly under his breath, and waited for the nausea to pass. 

Brain to the Royal Society.  The rest of his organs, if useable, to be donated to whoever could use them.  

When they were allowed the body back.  

Sherlock hadn’t even considered venturing back to the Morgue.  Not yet. Not when his other half was laying in the freezer, covered in just a blue sheet.  

He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for, as he paged through the thick sheafs of documentation and processed very little.  Lists of assets, his brother’s inventoried accumulated wealth. As he lit his third cigarette off the second, Sherlock did feel sick.

Every section underlined with his brother’s cramped, slanted signature.

And it was pathetic, of all the things that had worked their way under his chest; but Sherlock felt the fish hooks twisting into his lungs as he forced back a sob.  Mycroft’s writing was a master class in terrible; angled and pointy, the legacy of a series of school teachers than had insisted he learn to write right handed.

Now he would never see it again.  There would be no ‘ _ I’m sorry I had to leave before you woke’, _ left on his bedside table, and no hastily scribbled notes in the margins of his case files.  

This was everything.  

Sherlock’s head was throbbing, and his throat was raw with nicotine and smoke when he emptied the last package on the bed.  His name was penned across the front of a small envelope that tumbled into his palm. Light. 

Deep blue ink scrawled across the lined page, and Sherlock could see where his brother had unconsciously switched to his left hand.  The letters were softer, easier, without the tortured, hand-cramping pressure of the others. He didn’t know if he wanted to read it (in fact, he was sure of it).

As long as the envelope was sealed, Sherlock wouldn’t have to read what was surely his brother’s goodbye.  

“You always did have to have the last word, didn’t you?”  He asked the paper, but his voice cracked and ruined the defiant attempt to hold onto his anger.  “You’ve left me all this fucking mess, and what do you expect me to do with it? It’s all things, Mycroft!  Just useless things!”

And none of it would bring his brother back.  

It couldn’t buy him one more kiss, or one more night with Mycroft’s eternally cold hands finger-combing the snarls from his hair.  They would never play the games they’d invented again.

Death was finite.  

And before he could talk himself out of it, Sherlock tore open the envelope.

 

_ Dearest, _

_ I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve tried to pen this letter, with the hope that I could somehow rob the words of their pain.  But some things are beyond me, and if you’re reading this, it is because something has gone wrong. I won’t speculate as to what it might be, it isn’t really the point of the letter, after all. _

_ You’re lying beside me as I write it.  Asleep. With your back to me because you’ve said it’s too hot to sleep close to me.  You’ve kicked off the blankets, and I’m certain that you’ll have migrated close before I’ve finished this letter.  You always do.  _

_ You would think this letter would get easier to write, I’ve finished two of them already.  But things have changed, and so I must leave you different answers to the questions you’ll be asking.   _

_ I know you’re glaring at the page by now, and muttering about the dramatics of it all.  And if I had wanted to leave cryptic truths, why couldn’t I have talked to you about it?  You’re right, of course.  _

_ Please, if you feel the need to throw this into the fire- wait.  Put it down somewhere safe, and come back to it later. You’ll never forgive yourself if you deny yourself the chance to know what I’m going to say.  _

_ Put it down, and walk away.  Don’t hurt yourself out of spite. _

_ I suppose first you’d want to know about the first two versions of this letter.  Did you think I would mention them, and not indulge your curiousity?  _

_ You were sixteen the first time, and it was just after the incident in South America.  I thought I was going to die, and I needed to know that you would be taken care of, should something happen during the surgery.   _

_ They were the clumsy words of a man not used to putting his feelings into text, and things between us had been tense for some time.  In the end, it had all been so simple- I loved you, and if I died, I wanted to leave a way for you to know. _

_ The second was when you were twenty-three, and determined to destroy yourself.  And possibly me, in the process. I was turning thirty, and felt very old.  _

_ We had been together five years, and I was beginning to truly understand what you had claimed to have known all along.  _

_ In the whole of the world, there was nobody else for us. _

_ How right you were.  Even now that I’ve passed forty, and our lives have changed in ways we never anticipated. _

_ You are my constant, you have always been.  And even though I’m not there for you anymore, remember that.  For all the mistakes I have made, I loved you. And love you still. _

_ Try to be kind to Mr. Morris when he comes to bring you all of this.  He’s not a brave man, but he’s good at his job. Even when I haven’t made it easy for him.  Which brings me to the next thing: _

_ I don’t think it should come as a surprise, but I’m certain it will. _

_ Everything I have in the world is yours.  Don’t glare, and don’t tell me you don’t want it-- I know.   _

_ I wear your ring, and if you were my husband, it would come to you anyway.  Let me know that, even when I’m gone, I can provide for the man I love. What you do with it is your own choice. _

_ Take care of our family, and yourself. _

_ It’s almost morning, and I can already see you starting to wake.  I suppose that means it’s time for me to find a way to end this letter.  I’ve been wondering all the way through what I should say. What my last words to you should be. _

_ As much as you’re hurting, you are stronger than you realize.   _

_ I love you, Sherlock.  I doubt even death can change that. _

__      - M _ _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> A curious question for other writers: do you have any processes or quirks you use when you write? 
> 
> I always end up turning everything to Night Mode (dark screen with light text) and grab a cup of coffee first (today, in my favourite bee mug, cause bees are cool.)


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